Quick scan of the economical, technological and environmental aspects of biomass value chains

This report presents the results of the AERTOs project, an ERA-NET project of seven RTOs in Europe: Fraunhofer, CEA, SINTEF, SP, TNO, Tecnalia and VTT. The objective is to identify, design and implement “joint, long-term, sustainable cooperation activities between RTOs”. The purpose of this work is a bottom-up approach to develop and deploy joint activities towards a Bio-based Economy. The results of this report will deliver input for a more extensive paper about the position of the RTOs in Europe. This report contains a quick scan of various biomass value chains that could emerge. Together with the AERTOs partners several bio-based chains were selected for further evaluation. Next, the technological, economical and environmental aspects of each step of the production chain were determined. By integrating this data over the full chain, the chains could be compared to each other in a consistent way. A sensitivity analysis then provided insight into the bottlenecks in the value chain.